a5c7b9f00b In a technologically advanced future, an elite human soldier takes command of a prototype star ship and works to defend the galaxy from danger. The first xbox had its share of great Bioware rpgs (Kotor, Kotor 2 and Jade empire) and with Mass effect they have entered the xbox360 market. Mass effect is an rpg much like Kotor, it takes place in a sci-fi world but this time the universe is created by Bioware themselves. It is not set in the Star wars universe like Kotor was. Bioware games have always been story driven and this one follows the pattern. The story is what matters in Mass Effect and it is just wonderful, fit for a movie. The actors are amazing in portraying their character, everyone has their own back story and you really come to love or hate all of them. It doesn't matter which of the two feelings, the important thing is that they affect you and feel like true humans (or aliens!). The graphics are beautiful, all the enviorments and characters are created with a great deal of creativity and intelligence Mass Effect does not only bring what is expected of the rpg-masters but also add some new material for the genre. They added a whole new system of selecting what your own character say, and he actually got a voice! You can argue if this takes away the feeling of you being the character but to its defense, you can still select what you want to say (more smoothly than ever) and the fact that the character has a voice makes it more realistic. One more great note is the character creation, its the best that I have seen and you can make your character look in a whole lot of ways. Not like in The Sims though, were you can make your character look like some kind of alien, you can only make realistic avatars. Third, the combat system. Old, hardcore rpgers might not like the new fighting system which is much more action oriented. I however, found the combat to be more intense and fun than ever before. I have one major complaint though. The side-quests. Every single one of them start out intriguing and interesting but it all just ends up with you going to a planet with no content except for a base which the enemy's are stationed in. There are side-quests you do on the real planets and they are great but its the other side-quests which are what I don't like. You will end up doing the main-story instead of these side-quests, most of the time. But the rest in Mass Effect is still all of what i expected from Bioware and all the great content in this game weighs up for the lacking in some side-quests. Bottom line, Mass Effect is a must if you own a 360 or a good PC, it combines rpgs with action in a wonderful and great way. Well, first of all, I was going to comment on the pretty bad graphics, but since the game was released 9 years ago I was expecting that when I decided to play it. However there are many aspects of the game that made me not enjoy it. 1)When exploring different worlds you sometimes run into some research facilities,mines etc. The thing is, I spotted 3 or 4 different types of "inside locations". In most planets the labs/facilities you encounter look completely identical. This made the game feel extremely repetitive and not well designed. 2)There were quite a few glitches on the game. Sometimes I found myself in places that I couldn't move and had to reload a previous save, sometimes my character and companions would turn all black and pixelated. It wasn't something unfixable, but still it wasn't something I liked. 3)I didn't really bond with my companions. When you play a game that is based so much on the NPCs that accompany you, you would expect that after a point of the story you would care for them. Mass effect 1 wasn't like that. For example, at the point of the story when you have to choose to rescue either Kaidan or Ashley and let the other one die, it was hard for me to choose due to the fact that I din't care at all about their fate. 4)It felt to me that dialogue options didn't matter so much. On some occasions you were given three seemingly different options and whichever you chose C.Sheppard would say the same thing. Furthermore, most of the choices you made wouldn't really matter at all, later on. I'm not saying that it's the worst game I've ever played (the story was good, despite the bad-in my opinion- way to narrate it) but it sure belongs in my bottom 5. A book written by Drew Karpyshyn, who is also the lead writer for the video game. It is a prequel set 18 years before the events in Mass Effect, the game. The main character is David Anderson, who is also in the game (voiced by Keith David). The novel also gives reveals more on Saren Arterius, the main antagonist of the Mass Effect game.